| Original caption: “[Schutzstaffel] SS men who were captured at the camp are made to remove the dead bodies to lorries for burial.” Outraged at the conditions they encountered when entering Bergen Belsen, the United Kingdom Royal Army arrested any Nazi German Schutzstaffel (SS) guards remaining, including SS Aufseherin (“Female Overseer”) and publicly humiliated them by forcing them at bayonet and rifle point to collect and bury the 13,000 corpses around the camp. The SS were not allowed personal protective equipment; some 20 of the 80 men and women contracted typhus or other diseases, and died with months. Former inmates threw rocks at their former jailers, and heckled them as they did their work. The Nazi German guards had to load the bodies into trucks, and then ride with the bodies to the burial pits. Then, the bodies were removed from the trucks and carried to the pits. All of this was don with manual labor. When exhausted, the Germans were forced to rest face down in a freshly dug burial pit. When they were collecting corpses, Clara Silbernik, née Spiegler, (September 24, 1916 – January 17, 1969), became furious after seeing SS guards throw the corpse of her best friend onto the truck. She charged after the guards to complain about the abuse of her friend’s corpse. There were so many corpses and so little time that most were handled roughly. Clara Spiegler married Max Silbernik (June 10, 1908 – May 27, 2007) the only survivor of 12 brothers and sisters. He owned a shoe factory in Poland and had a wife and family who also died in the Holocaust. They immigrated to Chicago, Illinois in 1949 where Silbernik’s sister had arrived prior to the war. They lived in Skokie and owned the Alandale chain of women’s clothing stores. They have a till living son, Marty Silbernik. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0573.jpg |
| Image Size | 499.25 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1852 x 1764 |
| Photographer | A. Norman Midgley |
| Photographer Title | Number Five United Kingdom Royal Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 28, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen |
| City | Bergen |
| State or Province | Lower Saxony |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | Imperial War Museum |
| Record Number | BU 3797 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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